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Sharing the same reference, the different English Versions emphasis differently. The former two versions of “东坡肉”focus on the cooking method and the ingredients, neglecting the cultural meaning of the dish. This kind of translated names implies the elements of the food, which can help the foreigners get the brief account of the dish. The translated names are food-oriented, without any information about China. However, the latter two translated names consist of the cultural part or the China-related part. However, they may be not understandable for those foreigners who know little about China. To some extend, we can think of those two tendency of translation as the translation method of foreignization and domestication.
Except the translation of “东坡肉”, there are many other examples, where the name of a certain dish is translated into different versions, cutting out the inherent part of the name which is an obstacle for foreigner to understand, or trying to keep the original sense. It seems that sometimes it is not easy to both keep the original sense of the dish and let the translated name understandable to the target-language people. Chinese are facing the dilemma choosing to keep the unique beauty of dishes’ name and spreading the Chinese culture, or choosing to sacrifice the aesthetics and the culture to satisfy the target-language-speakers.
This paper will analyze the factors of decision making, and try to reveal the psychological purpose of the decision makers.
1.3 Structure of the thesis.
1.4 Methodology of the Study
This essay will mainly base on the essay On Sense and Reference, written by the German philosopher Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege, and the Choice-making Theory. According to his theory, the real object is the reference. And one reference can be described or defined in different ways. In the case of Chinese menu translating, the dish can is the reference, and one reference can have more than one senses. Therefore, one dish( a certain reference) can have more than one name(sense). Each sense focuses on a specific aspect. The menu translation now are facing the dilemma to make choices, sense to sense or to reference.
2. Literature Review
Many studies on Chinese menu translation have been carried out . And the research of Chinese menu translation is one the way of being more and more systematical.
At the first beginning, the menu translation was not taken so seriously, and there are some ridiculous translation examples such as God use VPN（佛跳墙）,（童子鸡）,（夫妻肺片） and so forth.
3. Semantic Meaning in Chinese Menu Translation
3.1An Overview of Sense and Reference
Gottlob Frege’s(1892) gave an illustration of sense and reference in his most influential and best known work On Sense and Reference (On Sinn und Bedeutung). According to Frege, reference (Bedeutung) refers to a definite object. If a definite object is designated by a sign (name, combination of word, written mark), it should be called the reference (Bedeutung) of the sign.Moreover, it is quite normal for one definite thing to own several signs(names).
Frege introduced sense (Sinn) to accommodate difficulties in his early theory of meaning. Sense which is a mode of presentation is something possessed by a name. The sense of different names is different.
The distinction between reference and sense of a sign is the associated idea. Once a reference (an object) is labeled by a sign, it is attached by an idea. The idea is subjective: one man’s idea is not that of another.
To make it clear, Frege makes use of the following example.
Let a, b, c be the lines connecting the vertices of a triangle with midpoints of the opposite lines. The point of intersection of a and b is then the same as the point of intersection of b and c. So we have different designations for the same point, and these names (‘point of intersection of a and b’, ‘point of intersection of b and c’) like wise indicate the mode of presentation; and hence the statement contains actual knowledge.